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Deadlock has not had a heat for what probably amounts to millions of years by now. With all that he’s done to his frame in those past millions of years and the millions that came before, he will likely never again go through a heat cycle unless some serious medical intervention happens to bring them back. Which, for the record, is not something that Deadlock wants. At all.
Because he hates having to go through heats.
He remembers hating having to go through heats.
He remembers the temperature, the whine of his fans, the insatiable hunger that wouldn’t leave him—so at odds with the violent disgust at the thought of having hands on him. He’d sold his first heat to the highest bidder and then put in the effort to never have to do that again. Because he’d hated it with all his being. Hated the way his mind and frame went to war, hated the way his frame always won out.
He remembers hearing other bots talk about it, seeing other bots go through it, and wondering if he was the odd one for finding it utterly disgusting instead of disgustingly hot. What about a mechanism with glazed-over optics and a field pulsing panic and desire in equal turns made for a good lay? Deadlock had only interfaced during his heats a few times before he locked them away behind military-strength suppressants, but he knew it wasn’t fun to be the mech in heat.
He doesn’t know about the other side, if fucking someone who’s already half-delirious with lust is in any way appealing. He doesn’t really want to know.
But, at the very least, Deadlock it seems is largely cured of the affliction of heat cycles. He’d learned that when he’d finally missed a dosage of suppressants and went through… a period of mild horniness that lasted for all of a few hours before vanishing entirely. No cloying warmth, no lagging processor, no insatiable urges, just… getting a bit charged up for a short while.
And that was it. It’s probably not a good thing that his systems can no longer run what most medics would consider a pretty vital sequence. It probably extends beyond just the heat cycles into other systems and coding, but…
But Deadlock doesn’t really care. He’s fine with all of that, whatever may come.
This way, he doesn’t have to fear losing control of himself. This way, he doesn’t have to fear someone finding him and touching him and using him while he can’t say no. This way, he stays in control of himself and his body, and no one can take that away from him.
… He is aware that not everyone has that luxury.
He sees it sometimes. Hears it, more often—because by fucking Primus is it loud. Two mechs going at it in the barracks, a spontaneous orgy in the washracks, an entire cohort gone mad in the middle of the fragging commissary.
They’re not common, they only happen once in a blue moon when someone finally does go into heat in a space where they can be found. Deadlock tries to avoid it whenever possible, because if he actually sees it, then he gets to wonder if the mech is at all like him, if there’s someone locked behind heat protocols, screaming their helm off and begging to be left alone.
He can never tell. He’s not sure if he’d like it better if he was able to.
It is one thing that the mechs under his command know for sure about him—their commander gets particular about interfacing habits. Deadlock has a whole system to protect his ‘Cons from ever being forced to experience a heat with someone they don’t want to. With anyone, if that’s what they want. And he enforces that system with extreme prejudice. And a lot of bullets.
But outside of that? Deadlock kind of can’t interfere. When it’s someone else’s grunt who goes into heat and practically gets mauled by their teammates, Deadlock can do little more than make a mental note on who did what and resolve to, perhaps, turn a blind eye the next time he’s on the field with any of them.
A big part of being a Decepticon is learning when to keep your head down and when to stand your ground. Deadlock is good at walking that balancing act. He’s much better than others, but even he has his moments of… overstepping, we’ll say.
Though, looking down at the three corpses and the mech still writhing on the ground, he doesn’t really think this particular instance counts as overstepping.
Let’s rewind, why don’t we?
So there was this racer.
Hot-blooded, hot-headed, and hot-tempered, Hot Rod was a mech who could outspeed Deadlock on a good day and had this nasty little habit of setting himself on fire. Deadlock had found him horrifically frustrating and then frustratingly fun and then…
Primus. Deadlock couldn’t explain it. There was no logic, no reason, no cause, he just—
There was a moment, where Deadlock had been shot and left in the dirt. And he knew he was surrounded by Autobots and it was only a matter of time before one of them showed up to put him down and rid their faction of that particular thorn in their sides. And he had been found, but the bot that had peered down into the gutter he’d holed himself into was Hot Rod.
And Hot Rod had slapped a patch over his wound, hidden him in a half-destroyed building, and told him to wait until sunset before making his great escape in the red shuttle.
When the sun finally did go down, Deadlock met no resistance as he nicked an Autobot shuttle that was almost offensively red and got the hell away from that planet.
And the entire time, all he could think about was Hot Rod. Hot Rod’s hands on his plating, Hot Rod’s hurried whispers against his audial, Hot Rod’s idiotic altruism that made him do things like, oh, letting a member of Decepticon Command run free.
Hot Rod, who was soft and merciful and kind and funny and—
And Deadlock who was an idiot and indulged him. An idiot who participated in very illegal races with him and sometimes deigned to split the prize money he got out of it. An idiot who…
Who cared about someone else, truly and deeply, for the first time in a very long time.
Deadlock always looks forward to their clandestine meetings, but so too does he dread encountering Hot Rod in any other context. Because for all that they not infrequently meet up to do little more than shoot the shit, they are still enemies. Decepticon and Autobot, diametrically opposed. Deadlock has always feared that one day, he’s going to be forced to put a bullet between Hot Rod’s two bright optics.
Deadlock has always feared that, when that day finally does come, he might not even be able to do it.
As it turns out, though, the battlefield was not the thing he should have been fearing.
Later, he’ll call it luck. Much later, he might call it divine ordinance.
It doesn’t feel much like that in the moment, though.
Deadlock learns that they have an Autobot prisoner. Nobody too important, but someone who apparently bumps elbows with the brass often enough that someone figured they might be worth more captured than killed. Deadlock doesn’t care to look into it.
He comes to regret that soon enough.
Deadlock smells it first—sickly sweet and sticky on the tongue, spilling through the halls like toxic waste. Deadlock feels his nasal ridge wrinkle at what his body tells him is a pleasant scent. He can already feel the way the smell alone muddles his mind, the lure that hides a hook pierced straight through Deadlock’s brain module, tugging him along an adamantine line.
Deadlock hears it next—heavy panting, fans running a mile a minute, a repeated wet noise accompanied by a soft, open-mouthed whine each time. This would typically be the point where Deadlock turns away and decides that since it’s not his ‘Cons, it’s not his problem. But something about the sound calls to him in a way it doesn’t normally. So, even despite the queasiness in his fuel tank, he marches on to whatever horror show he may come upon.
Deadlock finally sees it as he rounds the corner to find—
Hot Rod.
It. It takes him a moment to even process what he’s looking at, because the mech pinned to the floor is small. Not a minibot—and, oh, has Deadlock been privy to a complaint or two about that assumption—but close enough to be absolutely dwarfed by the war frames holding him down.
He’s restrained by stasis cuffs as per standard procedure with any prisoner, but despite the fact that he probably can barely move, one mech has taken the liberty of practically crushing his head to the floor, their thumb hooked into his mouth and keeping his jaws wide open and drooling all over the dusty metal beneath him.
Further down his frame…
Again, he’s small. Smaller than Deadlock, for sure, and tiny compared to the trio hovering over him. So Deadlock can barely even see the way the mech’s tiny array twitches around the giant fingers stretching it out. Each plunge of those digits elicits a noise from the mech’s vocalizer, something between a gasp and a moan, and it’s a soft enough sound that it’s almost drowned out by the slick noises from an overproductive valve squeezing out as much lubricant as possible.
And the mech pinned to the floor getting fingerblasted by a ‘Con easily twice his size is Hot Rod. Hot Rod who is soft and merciful and kind and funny and in heat.
Deadlock cannot deny interest. He’s stared at the curve of Hot Rod’s aft, he’s ogled the dip of Hot Rod’s waist. He’s imagined, on occasion, what Hot Rod would look like pinned beneath his bulk.
He’s also admired the quirk of his lips when he smirks, the way his optics seem to squeeze shut above the force of a grin, the way his hands seem to always be fidgeting, the way he talks too fast when he’s excited and sometimes stumbles over his words. He’s imagined, on occasion, what Hot Rod’s fingers would look like intertwined with his.
And all of that gets shuffled away somewhere else as Deadlock stalks towards the trio of mechanisms having their way with his Autobot in the throes of heat and out of his mind with lust-lust-fear-lust that pulses in his wide and wild field, no longer tightly lashed beneath his plating.
Deadlock picks his targets by order of severity.
The first is the one with his hands in Hot Rod. He doesn’t even get the chance to notice Deadlock before he’s dead. His leering grin stuck forever more on his shattered faceplate as Deadlock shoots a bullet through his optic and then a bullet through his spark.
The second is the one with his hands on Hot Rod. He gets a moment to startle, to look towards the threat and give Deadlock a much clearer target as he deals with this one much the same as the first—optic, then spark.
The third one had only been hovering over Hot Rod’s frame, stroking his spike over Hot Rod’s helm and happily watching the show. He gets to watch his two friends’ summary executions and has enough time to take his hand off his spike and stumble two steps back before Deadlock aims and fires twice. Once through the optic, once through the spark.
Six bullets in total. Only a few seconds go by.
Deadlock has to dig Hot Rod out of the pile of corpses he’s made, apologizing the whole time as he eases dead and still digits out of Hot Rod’s innards. And Hot Rod—
Hot Rod whines with the loss and clutches at whatever of Deadlock’s plating is within his reach. “Need it,” he begs, voice thick with static. “Please, please, please, I need it, I need it, please—”
Want-want-want, his field says, but Deadlock catches the rabid undercurrent, a feral emotion without name that is less fear and more desperation. The kind of thing Deadlock generally only encounters in mechs fighting for their lives. I don’t want to die, that feeling says.
“Shh,” Deadlock soothes, tucking Hot Rod’s helm beneath his own and stroking a servo down his spine, “I’ve got you. You’re okay. No one’s gonna touch you, I promise.”
“I need—” Hot Rod’s voice comes out strangled and it peters off into a growl as his clutching hands turn into curled digits, clawing at Deadlock’s plating with blunt fingers. Then, nosing at Deadlock’s neck, he pauses and takes a few sharp inhales. “… ‘Lock?”
“I’m here,” Deadlock promises. “I’m here, Roddy. I’m here.” He’s shaking, plating rattling especially loud where it presses against Hot Rod’s. Which is stupid, because Hot Rod’s the one who—who had to experience—
“Mmh,” Hot Rod purrs, pressing wet kisses to the column of Deadlock’s throat. “Deadlock…”
Bundled up in Deadlock’s arms as he is, it’s incredibly easy for Hot Rod to grind up against him, dragging his valve across Deadlock’s abdominal plates and leaving a slimy trail of lubricant in his wake. Deadlock… feels the sensation. Smells the heat-scent that Hot Rod dumps out in waves, but…
There’s a certain relief in how simple it is to ignore that.
I’m not them, Deadlock thinks as he backs away from the trio of dead bodies. I’m not him, Deadlock thinks, hefting Hot Rod further into his arms.
Time… blurs a little from there. Deadlock will admit that he definitely is more than a little panicked as he tries to get Hot Rod—
Away from here, somewhere safe, somewhere no one can touch him, somewhere no one can touch Deadlock.
Deadlock has stashes and caches and even a handful of ‘safe houses’ that the Decepticons don’t know about (Or… y’know, that most of the Decepticons don’t know about. There’s even odds that Soundwave knows every one of their locations, but whether he’ll tell is the real question), and he picks the closest one to hole up in, pacing the floor and checking and re-checking his ammunition while Hot Rod trucks through his heat on his own.
He begs and pleads and calls Deadlock’s name over and over, but Deadlock… can’t. He’s keyed up enough just being around a mech in heat, he thinks if he got close enough to touch again, he’d…
Primus he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know, he doesn’t want to be here, he feels sicker and sicker with each hour that goes by, but—
But Hot Rod needs him. Hot Rod needs someone to keep away unwanted advances and Deadlock swears on all the stars in the sky that he’ll tear apart anyone who comes within six miles with his bare fucking hands.
Every now and again, he does give into his anxiety and instincts that yearn to be at Hot Rod’s side. He settles on the berth with a gun in hand and stares at the door while Hot Rod drapes himself over Deadlock’s back and pants in his audial. He’s long past any real coherency by now, just grunting and whining and speaking through his field—want, want, want, with that same desperate undercurrent beneath it that Deadlock’s fraying nerves keep interpreting as the terrified animal underneath that wants to live as much as it wants to be left alone.
He doesn’t initiate any touch. He doesn’t respond to any of Hot Rod’s advances. He stands guard and watches over Hot Rod as he struggles through his body’s desires until finally, three whole days later, Hot Rod’s heat wanes.
The mech’s scent goes neutral and he falls into a deep slumber. Deadlock, who has stayed awake to keep watch through the entire thing, doesn’t feel very bad about collapsing into the berth beside him to finally quell his own exhaustion.
Hot Rod rolls over in his sleep, presses himself up against Deadlock. Exhausted as he is, Deadlock gives in and allows himself to wrap Hot Rod up in a tight embrace that has the little speedster’s engine rumbling with a contented purr.
And then he’s out like a light.
Hot Rod is a little fucked up.
In a lot of ways, truth be told. But, in this case, he mostly means the heat thing.
See, where most mechs have a tight schedule that comes to bowl them over the head with mind-numbing horniness at regular intervals, Hot Rod… has something else.
His first heat came late. He remembers being hungry and sickly and tired and then—
And then he was waking up to the smell of smoke and blood and lubricant and transfluid. He doesn’t remember what happened, that first heat. He doesn’t remember any subsequent heats either. He’s never been able to hold onto any memories during his cycles. But that first one was especially confusing and frightening, because he woke up covered in soot and spilled energon and someone else’s spend.
He’s… fairly sure he accidentally (Or… not accidentally?) killed whatever partner he had that first heat. Nothing ever came of it so he simply told himself he didn’t care and moved on. His first heat, and he didn’t even get to have any fun with it. Not that he remembers, anyways. He couldn’t even say that the whole forgetting thing quickly became the norm, because there was nothing ‘quick’ about it.
Hot Rod’s a little fucked up, right? He doesn’t get regular heats. They happen on the wobbliest, least consistent schedule any medic has ever seen, and when he does get one, they hit him so hard that he literally can’t remember them. He’s spent a few with other people, and apparently he acts pretty similar to any other mech in heat, his heat just lasts a bit longer than normal.
That doesn’t feel like it should cause as many problems as it apparently does, but whatever. It’s not like Hot Rod’s the medic.
He’s met mechs that love their heats and mechs that hate their heats, but Hot Rod lies in the perfect middle: he really could not give less of a shit.
It’s just—it’s nothing. He doesn’t remember them, he just wakes up sort of ache-y (Sometimes in more ways than one, heh) and tired when they’re done. Rarely does he pick up on them early enough to coordinate things, so he just has standing agreements with a fair few mechs. Hey, if I’m in heat and you’re around, feel free to plow me into next week, that sort of thing.
Mostly, again, he doesn’t really care about whatever it is he gets up to during his heats. Whether that’s climbing Springer like a tree or letting Arcee have whatever fun with him she wants to or just… humping his pillow for a week straight, it doesn’t really matter to him. Go figure, but ‘facing is only really fun when you’re actually there to experience it.
The only downsides—the times when it really isn’t fun at all—are the surprises.
Sometimes he wakes up after heats with strangers. That’s always a bit more concerning, but either they wise up real fast or they get Hot Rod’s foot up their exhaust pipe. And not in a hot way.
Sometimes he wakes up alone, but with clear evidence that he didn’t spend his heat in solitude. Sometimes he’ll ask, and one of his pre-approved partners will just have had to tag out halfway through. On a handful of occasions though, he’s had full-blown mystery partners that never step forward. People who left clawmarks in his plating, people who fragged his calipers out of alignment, people who had their way with him in the one period he’d never recall.
Hot Rod… chooses not to think too much about those ones.
To reiterate: he doesn’t really care about his heats.
Sometimes the surprises are more welcome.
Sometimes… he wakes up with his faceplate smushed up against Deadlock’s chassis, heavy arms holding him tight and close.
For a second, he doesn’t believe it. This has to be a dream, because there is no way he’s in bed with Deadlock, the guy he’s been crushing hard on for the past… fuck, he doesn’t even know how long. But it’s real. He’s wrapped up in Deadlock’s arms coming off of heat haze, with a certain tenderness to his valve and a slight ache in his jaw.
And, because he’s still coming down from a heat and he’s stupid, he does a poor job at reigning in his field. So he gets to watch Deadlock come online with a grumble, likely in response to the very loud delight Hot Rod’s spitting out. He squeezes Hot Rod, dipping down to nuzzle his helm and inhale sharply. That kind of does something to Hot Rod—the thought of Deadlock tasting his scent…
He’s heard that mechs go crazy for the heat-scent. Did Deadlock…?
Deadlock goes carefully still around him. Which could mean any number of things, Hot Rod tells himself, but he does try to… temper his expectations a little. Just because Arcee likes to frag him during his heat doesn’t mean she wants to kiss and hold hands. Deadlock… could very well be the same.
Could very well be worse.
“Hot Rod? You… you up?” Deadlock asks, a certain hesitancy in his words.
“‘M up,” Hot Rod agrees, stretching his frame where he can, squished in Deadlock’s hold. The Decepticon is quick to let go and give Hot Rod room to pull away. Which, of course, he doesn’t. He does use his newfound freedom to bring both arms up so he can drag himself further up Deadlock’s frame and get face to face. “Hey,” he greets, unable to suppress the soft, fond feeling in his field.
Deadlock peers up at him with… with tired eyes.
“You okay?” Hot Rod asks. He’s been told by some that he can be… sort of a lot, during heats. Whatever the hell that means.
“I should be asking you that,” Deadlock murmurs, hands shakily coming back up around Hot Rod. “Hot Rod, you…”
He sounds… hm. He sounds not-so-good.
“Was I that bad?” Hot Rod asks, because he’d rather make it a joke than a whole thing. Maybe Deadlock will swiftly reassure him and tell him that he was the hottest lay the ‘Con’s ever had. Maybe Deadlock will tell Hot Rod he absolutely sucked and Hot Rod can insist he’s a better lay when he’s not in the middle of a heat and possibly salvage the situation.
What he’s not expecting is the swell of nausea in Deadlock’s field and the Decepticon’s vehement, “No! Primus, no, I didn’t—I wouldn’t—” He has to stop to vent sharply, a strange panic in his optics before he’s grabbing Hot Rod’s face. “I didn’t touch you, I promise. I wouldn’t do that to you. Not when—not when you’re in heat and you can’t fucking say no—”
Well that’s—
Um.
“Oh,” Hot Rod says.
He’s never… had this happen before, actually. He’s never had anything like this happen.
“Kept you safe, though,” Deadlock goes on. “Made sure no one could touch you. No one could—” Deadlock’s vocalizer hitches audibly and he pulls Hot Rod down to hold him tight. “I’m sorry. Primus, I’m so sorry I didn’t get to you sooner. I’m sorry.”
That’s actually! A lot more concerning!
Hot Rod tries to wrack his processor for what the hell was happening to him before his heat, but the only thing he can come up with is some mission—?
Oh. Except, no. He remembers the mission, yeah, but he also remembers how it ended for him: he got caught. Holed up in a Decepticon cell and sneering at the big mechs passing by. And he remembers the way his fans had whirred to life without his input, the way discomfort had spread beneath his plating, the way red optics suddenly started to linger on him—
Oh. That’s…
Deadlock didn’t touch him. Swears he didn’t, and there’s truth in his field, clear as water. But there are aches in his frame that can’t be fully explained away by getting overzealous with his own hand.
He could think about it. He could wallow in it, fall deep into it, get lost in it, but—
Hot Rod… won’t, actually. He’s going to put that thought somewhere else and not think about it now or hopefully ever.
“You could’ve touched me,” is what he chooses to say after a long moment of silence and realization. Deadlock goes stiff around him. “I wouldn’t have minded. You’re… you’d treat me good.”
He can feel the shudder that rolls through Deadlock.
“No, I couldn’t’ve,” Deadlock says. Insists, really, a vehemence to his words that Hot Rod doesn’t fully understand. “I… heat, it… I don’t… like to frag people in heat.”
Hot Rod blinks. “Really?”
Autobots are pretty strict about heat stuff, but Hot Rod has been allowed to help out a scant few people with their heat cycles. He agrees on the front of them being pretty… whatever, because they are—hot and sticky and tiring and Hot Rod usually just comes out of them not wanting to have sex for, like, at least a month after.
But he knows that’s not a popular opinion to have. Certainly not an opinion he’d expected Deadlock to have.
“It’s…” Deadlock seems to struggle for a moment, grasping for words, before slowly continuing, “I hate having heats. I hate not being in control. I hate that my body wants something that I don’t. It’s not hot, it’s not sexy, it’s… it fucking sucks is what it is. And when I see other mechs going through it, it’s just a lot of the same. Someone going out of their mind doesn’t make me want to interface with them.”
Hot Rod… hums. A soft noise of acknowledgment as he absorbs that.
Then, softly, he admits, “I don’t remember my heats.”
Deadlock’s bright red optics stay pinned on him.
“It’s not… it’s not a big deal to me, I guess, but I’m…”
Ugh, does Hot Rod really want to say this? Here? Now?
He finds himself glancing down at Deadlock. Deadlock who stayed by Hot Rod’s side throughout his heat without ever giving into the ‘urges’ that other mechs always go on about. Deadlock whose fangs peek out from his lips when he smiles, Deadlock who loves racing and seeing the colors of sunsets on a million and more planets, Deadlock who’s always gentle and mindful of his claws whenever he touches Hot Rod.
“I’m kind of… I’m glad that you didn’t… that we didn’t… y’know. ‘Cause. ‘Cause I was sort of hoping that I’d actually get to… to be there if we ever did end up… y’know.”
Hot Rod feels the burst of surprise in Deadlock’s field. Wouldn’t be able to miss it, with how close they are.
“I… care about you,” Hot Rod blurts. “I’ve… I’d have been fine if you fragged me through my heat, because you’re… you’re you. And… and I trust you. But… thanks for letting me say all this before anything else. I guess. Thanks for… for giving me a chance to say yes first.”
It’s the shittiest confession Hot Rod has ever heard in all his function, but it makes Deadlock’s optics go soft and he cups Hot Rod’s face and brings their crests together.
“If we… I’d like to be there, too,” Deadlock says. “And I’d like you to be there too. All of you, not just what comes out during a heat.”
That’s—?
“You—?” Hot Rod can’t even finish his question, doesn’t even know what he wants to ask. Deadlock just smiles and nuzzles their noses together.
“I… I care about you too,” Deadlock says, breaking Hot Rod’s brain in the process. “I want… I want you to be safe. I want you to know you’ll always be safe with me. I’ll always protect you, Hot Rod, I promise.”
Hot Rod thinks back to Deadlock’s words just moments ago—the whole… I hate not being in control thing. And he presses back against Deadlock and promises, “You’ll always be safe with me, too. We can protect each other.”
That gets a laugh out of Deadlock. A little one, barely more than a sharp vent. “Yeah? The little Autobot’s gonna protect me?”
“Please,” Hot Rod scoffs, “I’d scrap with Unicron to keep you safe. So long as I’m around, you’ve got nothing to fear.”
Deadlock laughs again and tucks his face into the crook of Hot Rod’s neck. “I’m gonna hold you to that, Roddy,” he says. There’s a wobble to his voice that tells Hot Rod he means it more than perhaps however he wanted it to come across.
“I’ve got you, Deadlock,” Hot Rod says. “I’m here. You’ve got me.”
Deadlock’s field, which had held a strange tremor the entire time since Hot Rod’s awakening—something he only now recognizes as the sharp edge of fear—finally smooths away into something softer. Something warmer.
Oh, sweet thing. “I love you,” Hot Rod responds to the swell of emotion that meets him. Deadlock makes a soft noise, something halfway between a gasp and a sob.
“… Again?” He asks.
“I love you.” Hot Rod would say it a thousand times if it made Deadlock happy. Deadlock doesn’t say the words back, but he doesn’t need to.
His field speaks for him, a soft and new thing, matching… whatever this is.
Tight against Hot Rod’s spark, it says: Love, love, love.